Nextar X3 3.5 Color LCD Touch Screen w/ portable GPS

Pros: Touch screen and voice prompts at a very low price. Rapid satellite aquisition and route calculation. Small size,and rechargable battery. Can pan and get location addresses by touching the map.

Cons: Poor performance and glitchy. Unit freezes, won't respond to touch commands, inaudible volume with terrible, tinny and distorted speaker. Map data set extremely limited.

Summary: The low price point for this feature rich device is not worth the savings. The menus are not intuitive and difficult to navigate. I would have loved to have kept it for $129 ($179 on sale + $50 rebate at Checker Auto), but it would not be worth the aggravation.

One wants a GPS to navigate to a desired point of interest (POI). This unit comes preloaded with a limited data set of POIs with no ability for the user to create or upload additional POIs. Not a single store is listed in the "Shopping" folder, yet nearly every art dealer is in the "Attractions" folder. I don't know about you, but I frequent stores much more than art dealers. No phone numbers for POIs are supplied in the map data base. My Garmin data base includes addresses and phone numbers; it is very useful as a sort of phone book.

The X3 also has no ability to create proximity alerts, so forget warning yourself about photo radar or red light cameras.

The ability to pan by dragging the map with your finger would be very useful if it worked with consistency, however touching the map to drag it often resulted in launching the information screen. The info screen gives the approximate address of the point touched. Unfortunately, these addresses are inaccurate. I couldn't even program my own home location because it shows my house as being a block away from its actual location. The zoom function also froze, leaving me unable to resize the map when I needed to, and then finally responding a minute or two later.

The menus to customize maps did not function correctly. Selecting a yellow background made it blue, selecting white made it black.

The rear single speaker is practically inaudible unless it is at maximum volume, and at that volume it is distorted. Although it can play MP3 files, it would be ridiculous to do so except through headphones.

The cigarette lighter power cord has such a strong recoil that it pulls the unit down from the window. It is supposed to have colored LEDs to let you know when the batteries are charged, but these LEDs are not there. The window mount is cumbersome and seems flimsy. I am used to my Garmin, which is simple and solid feeling.

Customer support is easy to reach. They answer the phone promptly, but they seem to be completely unfamiliar with their own product. I was told on calls about three separate issues that my brand new unit was defective and should be exchanged. It seems like the software cannot be reinstalled or altered/repaired. I was also told of future vaporware that would allow user creation of POIs and proximity alarms. However, there has been no update that has ever been offered in the two years since the current software was released 2 years ago, so don't hold your breath waiting for these upgrades. A map update will be coming out and will cost about $50. No free update has ever been offered.